


From Grace

by thirdbride



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 08, don't get me started on the deleted scenes, the boatbaby that was promised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21831355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirdbride/pseuds/thirdbride
Summary: “They’ll love you,” he whispers. “The Dragon Queen who came to save the world”.And you she wants to ask him. Will you still love me in this cold place or will your heart become ice?
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 33
Kudos: 90





	From Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Never thought I would write fic but some version of this has been in my head since the finale and well, with the deleted scenes it just came out. 
> 
> This is starting off angsty and introspective. 
> 
> Also, this is for Dany fans. If you think her heel turn was earned or made sense, then this isn't for you. If you weren't disturbed by the misogyny levelled at her from the writers then this isn't for you. Sorry!
> 
> Finally, this is unbeta-d so all mistakes are my own--sorry in advance
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to GRRM and GOT storylines, etc belong to D and D.  
> Title and lyrics at the top come from Metric's latest album.

**From Grace**   
  
  
  


_ You said, “Don’t let your heart give out” _

_ “No, I won’t let my heart give out” _

**I.**

On the way to Winterfell, Viserys begins to visit her in her dreams.

Not Viserys as she’d last seen him, broken and twisted and a victim of their family’s madness, but the boy from her youth with lavender eyes soft as petals and a sad smile. She’d almost forgotten that boy, left him behind in the Great Grass Sea.

He never says anything but sometimes he’ll hold her in his arms and they’ll sway to the far off sound of a tune she can almost remember. And she’ll rest her head on his shoulder and think of his namesake, so affectionate and loving, and cry the tears she has never allowed herself to shed. She wakes to the song of her children, distant and mournful, and as Missandei braids her hair she imagines each braid a chain around her heart. It makes her feel more like herself, the Dragon Queen, who will bring fire and blood to the murderer of the babe that suckled from her own breast, blood of her blood, fire made flesh.

She will destroy him and bring Spring to her people.

  
*

The night before their arrival in Winterfell, Viserys speaks. 

“I never protected you,” he says. 

She thinks of the way he held her on the streets of Braavos, proud but so small and scared. They were lambs then, both of them, and he stayed one his whole life. 

“You did,” she lies.

He laughs and shakes his head. When he looks at her there are tears in his eyes. “I was no true dragon.”

She takes his hand but cannot lie to him about this. The familiar tune starts to play. She waits for him to gather her in his arms.

He removes his hand from hers and places it on her womb.

“The dragon has three heads, Dany.” 

No. 

She is the last dragon and she might die in this frozen place, the blood of old Valyria spilled far from any of her ancestors. There can be no other.

He opens his mouth to say something else but she wakes with a start, her fingers pressing into her flat belly. 

She stands and attempts to steady her breath. There is a flutter of something in her heart and she does not know if she is strong enough to kill it. She picks up the cloak near her bedside and leaves her tent. Her guards start to follow her but she waves them away and goes to Jon’s tent, where a pair of Unsullied avert their eyes as she makes her way inside.

She expects to find him asleep, but he is awake, still dressed, his head buried in his hands. She thinks he looks like a King then, the weight of so many on his shoulders. 

“Dany,” he says, without looking up.

“You’re awake.”

He smiles and says, “As are you.”

She cannot return his smile. It was just a dream, she tells herself, a dream like any other. Her womb is as barren as the Red Waste. She says nothing.

“Come. Sit.”

When she reaches him his arm goes around her waist and he pulls her into his side. He turns his face and noses at her hair. If they were back on the boat she would tease him for being a wolf and he’d smile his lupine smile and he’d kiss her with the hunger of a pack that has scented blood and they would tear at each other’s clothes until they were skin to skin and heart to heart.

“They’ll love you,” he whispers. “The Dragon Queen who came to save the world”.

_ And you _ she wants to ask him.  _ Will you still love me in this cold place or will your heart become ice? _

She kisses him instead.

**II.**

She’s tired all the time. She can’t sleep and when she does she dreams of Viserion in chains, whipped and in pain, crying for her as the Night King mounts him.

How can she be the breaker of chains when her own son is a slave? She’s faced loss after loss, and since landing in Westeros, failure after failure. And here in the North, her failures seem to grow. It was hard with Drogo and his people but they came to respect her, care for her, love her. But here she cannot seem to win anyone over. 

_ Will they ever love me _ , she thinks. 

She is afraid, so afraid that they never will and that the child that grows in her belly will suffer the consequences of this mistrust. 

Did Rheager feel this too? Did her mother? 

_ I’ll protect you _ , she promises the babe inside her.  _ You will not die at the hands of my enemies like Rhaenys or Aegon and you will not grow up like Viserys and I, scared and alone. _

  
  


**III.**

The cold starts to wear on her. With each passing day she feels a part of herself grow dimmer.  _ You are a dragon _ , she thinks, but like her dragons she can barely bring herself to eat. It’s as though the ice around her is draining her of her flames and she wonders what will happen if there is no fire left.

She wants to leave this place but she must do her duty to her people. There are so many children here, small and hungry and cold. They must live and grow strong and if they don’t love her then maybe they will love the babe she will birth. If it’s a girl, she decides, she’ll name her Alysanne and they’ll fly to the Wall together, and they’ll look out with no fear in their hearts, only love for each other and care for their people. And she’ll tell her daughter of the war they fought against an evil king and of the brother she never met who died to save them all.

And mayhaps Jon will be with them too, a crown on his head, a smile on his lips for his Queen and Princess.

It is a sweet dream but as she walks through the throngs of men readying for battle with him it becomes harder to hold onto. Though she is with Jon, the men of the North are as cold as the winds beyond the Wall. They look at her with ice in their eyes and hearts. But she must be the fire that warms them, she knows this.

She sees a boy walking with a bucket of water. Rhaego would have been only a few years younger.

She turns to Jon and says, “I shall thank him for his service to his Queen.”

Jon follows her as she walks. The cold cuts her cheeks like a dagger but she tries to pay it no mind. 

She stops by the boy as he offers water to a group of soldiers who are digging. She wants to say something to all of them but she feels uncertain, a ghost of the Queen she knows she is. 

And then one spits. 

Her heart drops. She knows somewhere inside her that no kindness she could show, no words she could say, will ever be enough. 

She will never be enough. 

But she cannot fail, and surely Jon will help her, guide her, make his people see.

She looks up at Jon but he is holding back a laugh. 

Something inside her breaks. 

**IV.**

Jon may be Rhaegar’s son but he is a true King of Winter.

After he tells her the truth of his parentage in the crypts he becomes ice. They neither talk nor touch and when his eyes meet hers she feels her insides become frozen. 

She knows Tyrion and Varys notice. 

She knows they disapprove. 

_ It’s not me _ , she wants to say.  _ I love him _ .

But a part of her, a selfish part of her, is so angry. He grew up a bastard but he had siblings who loved him, a man who sacrificed his honour to protect him. He never had to shoulder the burden of the Targaryen name. Even now, no one worries that he will become mad, only that he will succumb to her as though she were a seductress and not a Queen. She has fought for their House on her own, she has fought for her people, she has been raped and defiled, betrayed and beaten, hungry and alone. All to come home, to regain her family’s throne, to undo the mistakes of her father and brother and build a better world. 

But he is the father of her child. He is her family. He has died for his people and bent the knee for them, too. He would be a good King. Maybe the best of their line. If he decided to press his claim she doesn’t know what she would do. She couldn’t fight him. 

She will tell him she is with child. He may be disgusted by her but he would never let their child grow up a bastard. And he would love their child. She knows this. They can rule together.

There is a knock on her door.

Her heart is a galloping horse.

Tyrion opens the door. His face is white. 

“They’re almost here,” he says. 

She’ll tell Jon after the battle. But first, they must win.

**V.**

The sun begins to rise.

Rhaegal has joined Drogon, his whines of pain knives in her heart. They surround her with their wings and their breath keeps her fingers from going numb.

Jorah’s head is still on her lap. She can’t bring herself to close his eyes. She can’t bring herself to stand, though both Drogon and Rhaegal have nudged her and pleaded.

_ Jorah. Viserion. Lady Olenna. Rakharo. Irri. Jhiqui. Kovarro. Rhaego. Drogo. Viserys. Mother. _

How many have died because of her? How many of the bodies around her are Unsullied and Dothraki who followed her across the Narrow Sea because they loved and believed in her? 

Did she even know all of their names? Will she be able to tell stories of their valour or will the memory of their lives be lost forever?

She led each and every one of them to their deaths. She is no Queen. She is undeserving of all her titles. She is only the Daughter of the Death.

She has never hated herself so much.

She forces herself to look at Jorah’s face. 

“I’m sorry, Old Bear” she whispers, smoothing back his hair and placing a kiss on his brow. A part of her died with him, the young girl who dreamt of red doors and lemon trees.

Drogon roars and Rhaegal joins him. The ground beneath them shakes.

She waits for Jon to find her but it is Grey Worm who lifts her in his arms and sets her down before anyone sees her.

*

She waits for Jon in her room that night and again in the morning. She wants to hold him and she wants him to hold her and she wants to cry into his chest and tell him that for a moment, just one, she needs to not be strong. 

She waits but he never comes. 

She hears pieces of how the Night King fell from Tyrion. She sits with Missandei and Grey Worm and they remember the names of all who have fallen. She will create a monument for them in King’s Landing. She will order flowers from Essos once a year to remember them and she will commission a bard to write a song for the warriors from the East who lost their lives for Westeros.

She tries to be glad that this battle is behind her but the thought of what’s to come is almost too much to bear.

*

“I’m with child,” she tells Missandei the morning after the feast. They are lying in bed together like they used to in Mereen. 

“I know,” Missandei says. Her eyes are warm and her smile is soft and pretty, like a butterfly. Then she laughs and says, “Your breasts have grown and your hair is like spun silver.’

She laughs too and she takes Missandei’s hand and places it on her stomach. There is nothing to feel yet, not even a real swell, but Missandei’s eyes grow tender. Then she removes her hand and moves so that they can feel each other’s breath. 

Missandei hesitates and then asks, “Have you told Lord Snow?”

She feels her stomach twist. She thinks of how he pushed her away last night. She thinks of how she begged him and there is a bitter taste in her mouth. “No. I was going to before the battle and then last night.”

“What stopped you?”

She looks down at their legs. When Missandei was younger her legs were only a bit longer than Dany’s own. Now Missandei has become a woman grown and her legs are much longer. And Dany has become a woman too. They left their childhood across the sea.

She looks up at Missandei’s face. “Do you think me a fool for leaving Essos?” 

Missandei rolls her eyes but grabs Dany’s hand and clutches it. “You are no fool. You know this.”

She feels her eyes sting. Tears have come so easily to her since her dreams of Viserys. “Coming here has only brought me death.” 

“No, Your Grace. You have saved so many lives and you have life inside of you.”

The muscles in her throat are tense as her voice breaks. “Only death can pay for life Missandei. I fear my womb could only quicken because Viserion died.” She sobs then and covers her face with her hands to muffle the sound. She wonders if someone has heard her and will report her weakness to Sansa or Varys.

Missandei strokes her hair and begins to hum. They are quiet until Missandei asks, “When will you tell Lord Snow?”

She doesn’t answer.

**VI.**

The night before they are due to leave Winterfell, she dreams she is standing in the throne room of the Red Keep.

Snow is falling all around her. She looks up and watches Drogon fly, a red comet at his side. 

She hears a cracking sound. Viserys is sitting on the throne, his clothes ripped and torn by the melted swords all around him.

He beckons her forward and she walks to him.

“Sweet sister,” he croons, “Come closer.”

She moves until she is in front of him. He takes her face between his hands and she smells charred meat on his breath. “Don’t wake the dragon, Dany,” he pleads.

There is another cracking sound. She sees Drogon approach from behind the throne. His eyes are full of rage. He rears back and lets out a breath of fire the likes of which she’s never seen. She closes her eyes and when she opens them, Viserys and the throne are no more.

Drogon comes closer. He nuzzles his snout against her cheek and then her belly.

“Blood of my blood,” she tells him and he roars his agreement while Viserion and Rhaegal fly overhead, their roars a song.

He lowers his wing and she climbs on top. They fly and his heart becomes hers and hers becomes his.

Drogon adds his voice to the song of his brothers but something is missing so she adds her voice to theirs.

They fly higher than they ever have before, the stars around them twinkling red like rubies in a murky river. But it’s not enough.

Still, they fly higher and higher, sing louder and louder.

She looks down and sees a dragon egg in her hands.

The final crack echoes all around them and just before she wakes up, she hears another voice join their song.

*

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave your comments :)
> 
> I feel like this works functions a one shot but I also want to round the rest of the season out/make my heart happy. Let me know if you think it needs another part!


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